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April 22: Earth Day

Bike Tune-ups I 10AM-6PM

Ever thought about being a bike commuter? Get your bike ready and stop by the RIT Mobile Bike Shop at Gleason Circle transit plaza for a $10 Tune-up. That's 50% off in honor of Earth Week. Discount available for the first 25 customers with valid student ID. Sponsored by RIT Sustainability and Student Wellness.

Sustainability Institute Hall Tours I 10-11AM • 12-1PM • 2-3PM

Guided, hour-long tours of the new sustainability building will be offered at 10am, 12pm and 2pm. Tours will start by the green wall on the first floor of the building. Interpreting services have been requested for the 12pm tour.

April 23: Bike Tune-Ups

Gleason Circle I 10AM-6PM

Stop by the RIT Mobile Bike Shop at Gleason Circle transit plaza for a $10 tune-up. That's 50% off in honor of Earth Week. Sponsored by RIT Sustoinability and Student Wellness.

April 24: Community Garden Work Day

Community Garden I 11 AM-1 PM

Is there any better way to celebrate Earth Week than by getting your hands in the soil? Join Dawn Carter in the community garden and help prepare the site for planting.

April 25-26: Protecting the Great Lakes

Thursday @ MCC | Friday @ RIT

Rochester Regional Sierra Club's 15th Annual Environmental Forum, sponsored by Sierra Club, FLOW, MCC, and RIT. The forum, featuring keynote speaker Maude Barlow, begins at 5:15 on Thursday at MCC. Accompanying workshops will be held at RIT on Friday. Find out more and register here.

During winter quarter, members of our NTID Committee for Sustainable Practices participated in two waste audits led by RIT environmental sustainability professor Josh Goldowitz. Our first audit analyzed how much trash thrown into waste bins could have been recycled and kept out of the landfill. Our second audit focused on figuring out how much trash was disposed of into recycle bins. Students from Dominique Lepoutre's capstone classes made up roughly half of the participants in the second audit, and NTID President Gerry Buckley joined the festivities. We are proud that they made the news on NTID's web site!

To help support RIT’s Climate Action Plan to become Carbon Neutral by 2030, information about the RIT community’s recycling habits is being collected. This survey will help campus sustainability professionals create more robust recycling programs and increase the amount of waste which is recycled.

Please take the time to complete this survey before Monday, January 30th. Randomly selected respondents will win prizes, so be sure to supply an email at the end of the survey!

Check out the new EZH2O Hydration Station, recently installed in the SDC! Located just outside of the Dining Commons, this touch-free filtered water dispenser is not only a convenient way to fill reusable containers but also tracks the number of disposable bottles saved from landfills.

So grab your reusable container, head over to the SDC, and see how many disposable bottles we can save by looking at the counter on the hydration station!

In this captioned news video, RIT President Dr. Bill Destler discusses RIT's participation in the Clinton Global Initiative, as well as several sustainability initiatives on RIT campus. Particularly exciting is Dr. Destler's announcement that RIT will be carbon neutral by 2030! The Clinton Global Initiative, established in 2005 by former President Bill Clinton, brings together global leadersto develop and implement solutions to some of the world's challenges, including population growth and rising consumption. The RIT sustainability education model will be used to assist five countries: the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia and Peru.

Did you know that RIT has an on-campus community garden that's open to all faculty, staff, students, alumni and retirees? RIT's Better Me program established the garden, located south of the tennis courts near U-lot, in 2009 and it has been an immediate success. The harvest is shared by all participating members, and any extra produce is donated to RIT Dining Services for featured entrees across campus and to FoodLink to support local food cupboards. The garden also serves as an educational opportunity for the children at Margaret's House.

To display its commitment to sustainable practices, NTID has appointed Chris Knigga, formerly NTID's Facilities Services Manager, as NTID’s Director of Facilities Services and Sustainability. Chris has assumed the following responsibilities for sustainability at NTID:

Create strategies to integrate sustainability into both the operational and academic functions of NTID, network with and facilitate internal and external resources to accomplish that goal, and evaluate the needs of the NTID community.

Facilitate and support the NTID Sustainability Committee to develop long and short-term strategic plans, recommending policy and organizational changes necessary to advance NTID sustainability initiatives.

Create and implement communication strategies to promote broad awareness of initiatives and develop a college-wide process to support sustainability inquiry, change, and assessment.

Build effective partnerships and relationships with RIT’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives to establish effective linkages with units across campus that may have sustainability initiatives in process or as part of their overall strategy.

Chris has been with RIT/NTID since October 2010. He received an associate degree in Architectural Technology from RIT/NTID, a bachelor’s degree in Construction Management and Architectural & Environmental Design from Bowling Green (Ohio) State University, and a master’s degree in Management from Walsh College in Troy, Mich.

About This Blog

The NTID Committee on Sustainable Practices is committed to promoting a sustainable environment for work and learning at RIT/NTID. We use this blog to share news, information and tips on being "green" with the RIT/NTID community. Learn more here.